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Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

nytimes.com

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Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#611

Post by 5thaccount »

mikeash wrote: post #114
5thaccount wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly. Not because they are likely to be problems, quite the opposite I'd wager. That's going to be the rather depressing and sad reality of the shakeout of this.

The good ol' "I don't want to be accused of a crime, so I'll preemptively commit a crime" defense. I would strongly advise against discriminating against people based on their sex in the course of your business dealings.

You are placing normative (meaning "you should do") moral judgements on a descriptive (meaning "this will happen") moral statement.

My prediction isn't what SHOULD happen, but what I think WILL happen. My personal opinion on what is morally right? As I'm not a VC, utterly unimportant and redundant.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#612

Post by 5thaccount »

Shivetya wrote: post #573
5thaccount wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly. Not because they are likely to be problems, quite the opposite I'd wager. That's going to be the rather depressing and sad reality of the shakeout of this.

There should be no one on one meetings for any plausible business venture. Both sides needs to have multiple players to protect all interest and keep discussions to the subject at hand. I would suggest than anyone who does get into such meetings simply demand the presence of multiple persons. This isn't a buddy lending money to another.

So, you want less meetings for women?

Scenario with a female founder: "Listen, I want to meet you but as we have an at least one woman present policy for any meetings with female founders, adn all the female partners are booked for the next week, I'm afraid I can't meet you".

Vs with a male: "Hells yes I'd love to catch up for coffee, I love your idea. Unfortunately, it will just be me as everyone else is busy".

When you add a price to a subset of players but not others, that subset suffers worse results see: http://freakonomics.com/2009/03/10/the-price-of-disability-l...

> One example was the Americans With Disabilities Act, and we told the story of a Los Angeles orthopedic surgeon named Andrew Brooks. When a deaf patient came to him for a consultation, he realized that the A.D.A. required him to hire a sign-language interpreter for each visit if that’s what the patient wanted. The interpreter would cost $120 an hour, with a two-hour minimum, and Brooks wouldn’t be reimbursed by the insurance company:

> That would mean laying out $240 to conduct an exam for which the woman’s insurance company would pay him $58 — a loss of more than $180 even before accounting for taxes and overhead.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#613

Post by lawnchair_larry »

haikuginger wrote: post #224
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know many people like that, and no, they don't derive an enjoyable power trip out of being rejected at all. Theybdon't know they can get away with it. They don't know that they are doing it . These people are rarely evil and predatory. They usually genuinely believe that the behavior they are exhibiting is desireable. They think that this is how the game is played, and these things are a form of peacocking. They th…

> Theybdon't know they can get away with it. They don't know that they are doing it. These people are rarely evil and predatory. They usually genuinely believe that the behavior they are exhibiting is desireable. At a certain point, one has to believe that another's actions are evil, even if that evil is unwitting. One mustn't actively choose to be "evil and predatory" to be so in fact.

That might be a reasonable reply if you took that line out of context like you did, totally missing the point being made.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#614

Post by lawnchair_larry »

bobdole1234 wrote: post #390
haikuginger wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, these men have often gone through life being wildly successful with this type of behavior up until society started to change around them. I feel so bad for them. /s

I'm not saying you should feel bad for them. I'm saying that's why it's so common: It's been a viable strategy for a long time.

I didn't neglect it, but I did delete it from my reply for the same reason you got flagged down, and thought I could make my point without adding that triggering distraction.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#615

Post by scott_s »

bjourne wrote: post #592
scott_s wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying no directly is uncomfortable - socially and potentially professionally. That's not because of "norms" but because of reality. Rejecting someone directly is socially awkward and potentially dangerous. It's not the responsibility of the person being pursued to protect the pursuer. It's pretty straight forward: if you ask someone out several times, and they keep making up excuses, they're not interested. Stop ask…

I disagree. The robustness principle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle ) or some permutation of it is used in virtually all communication systems and media channels. The burden is clearly on the sender of the message to be precise, not on the receiver to interpret a noisy message. I can't think of any situation, except for dating, where the burden is placed on the receiver.

It's how most communication works in just about all social situations, including dating, but even friends. Rarely does someone you want to be friends with say "Sorry, I don't want to spend time with you as a friend." They're just "busy."

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#616

Post by BrandoElFollito »

adamsea wrote: post #424
curun1r wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Intellectual consistency would require acknowledging the systematic repression of women in western history (not being able to vote, etc), and thus, the effects of what is still a patriarchial culture as often as not. In other words, your argument attempts to ignore simple historical facts which you can verify easily on Wikipedia.

I was always wondering why it is not appropriate to watch the skirt of a woman when I find it nice. Do not get me wrong, I come from a family of feminists, happily married with kids.

But I am also pragmatic : when I wear a nice costume, it is too show off. When going outside, I know I will be surrounded by people who will watch me.

If I wear a flamboyant shirt, I cannot be upset that people are watching me. I find this normal. I will not find normal someone complaining or even getting in contact with me because of that (though, why not?) but watching, even intensely, is OK. If I do not want to be seen I wear jeans and a blue t-shirt.

This is why I do not agree (including with my wife and mother) that women who wear nice, revealing things do this "for themselves". They do not. Le any other animal, we show how good we are. But we are evolved animals and this do not mean "take me", something people (mostly men) forget.

In short : watching someone who decided to exhibit is absolutely fine. Anything else is crossing the line.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#617

Post by duggan »

bjourne wrote: post #592
scott_s wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying no directly is uncomfortable - socially and potentially professionally. That's not because of "norms" but because of reality. Rejecting someone directly is socially awkward and potentially dangerous. It's not the responsibility of the person being pursued to protect the pursuer. It's pretty straight forward: if you ask someone out several times, and they keep making up excuses, they're not interested. Stop ask…

I disagree. The robustness principle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle ) or some permutation of it is used in virtually all communication systems and media channels. The burden is clearly on the sender of the message to be precise, not on the receiver to interpret a noisy message. I can't think of any situation, except for dating, where the burden is placed on the receiver.

You will note the robustness principle applies to "code that sends commands or data to other machines", not people.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#618

Post by FeepingCreature »

XorNot wrote: post #593
freeflight wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is people being assholes because they know they can get away with it. > I would guess that their motivations go beyond just looking for sex and knowing that one time in twenty it will work. > Those are the people we call bullies, whether their acts are criminal or not. Spot on, sadly a much overlooked and ignored fact. While "sexism" certainly feeds into that, it's not the actual problem, the problem being tha…

Simple question: do you commit sexual harassment? If no, this is not about you. The existence of this conversation is not aimed at you.

If the people who aren't supposed to be targeted think they're targeted, and the people who are supposed to be targeted don't care, then maybe something has gone wrong with the discourse.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#619

Post by FeepingCreature »

adamsea wrote: post #426
drawnwren wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're pretty close to 100% correct here. My one addition would be that with our level of connectedness, it would require an insane amount of self control for an individual (male) to be of the mindset 'I take the things I want at work' and not have slip ups of the sort we're seeing here (inappropriate messages etc.) Because this disclaimer seems necessary in posts like this, I am in no way condoning his actio…

To say it requires an "insane" level of self control is ridiculous.

Different people probably feel impulses with different strength.
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